Hearing the report from the apprentice Joshua, Taran El and Ted Riel almost simultaneously looked at each other, and before the latter could speak, Taran had already turned his head to the apprentice and said, "Next room, by the window, the second door on the left of the iron cabinet, blue paper tape box—run!"
"Ah... okay!!" Joshua hurriedly responded and ran out of the room—then there was a series of sounds of him bumping into sothing in the corridor and rummaging through the next room—just before Ted Riel started to worry that this bumbling young man was planning to take down the building, he rushed back in, holding a sealed file box.
Ted Riel took out the records from the file box and compared them with the paper tape that Joshua had just brought into the room, then went over to the bedside where Taran El was lying and showed him both records.
Taran El’s gaze landed on both new and old paper tapes, scrutinizing each peak and valley, his face gradually becoming grim.
"Is it the sa signal?" The voice of the Truth Confidant asked from nearby.
Taking into account the distortion caused by interference and possible errors from the instrunt itself... it should be the sa signal for sure," said Taran El solemnly.
"... This is the ’light signal’ that Miss Lucrecia previously recorded on the Brilliant Starship," Ted Riel stared at the record previously sealed in the tape box, contemplating, "It was released cyclically from within the ’luminous body’ during the period when the sun had extinguished, but we have yet to decrypt its aning..."
He suddenly raised his head and looked out the window at the sky.
The sun was slowly approaching the rooftops of distant buildings, the magnificent double Rune Circle was shimring brilliantly in the sky, the spectacular corona still radiating endless light and heat—dusk was nearing, but the anomaly 001 showed no signs of extinguishing at all.
Yet near Light Breeze Harbor, the "Luminous Geotric Body" suddenly began to release this strange signal that had appeared during the last sun-extinguishing period... Why is that?
"Has this signal been repeating?" Taran El asked his student.
"Yes... yes, it has," Joshua nodded hurriedly, evidently very nervous, "this signal had already repeated three tis by the ti the observatory sent over the data..."
"What do you make of this?" Taran El turned his head, looking towards his old friend.
"... I need to personally visit the observatory; these signals feel very unusual, I always feel that the weird ’Luminous Geotric Body’ is trying to ’communicate’ with the outside world. Perhaps I might find so clues if I go there," Ted Riel spoke briskly, while walking towards a nearby coat rack, grabbing his coat and hat, "I also need to inform a few from the gathering at ’The Fifth Ark’, they might not have noticed the anomaly yet..."
The Truth Confidant was prepared to leave, picking up his thick book filled with the Art of Miracles, and flipped open to a page depicting a "door." But suddenly, he stopped and looked up at the scholar lying in the hospital bed.
Taran El suddenly felt a tinge of unease: "... Why are you looking at like that?"
"If anything happens with the sun again, you stay put in bed—your last astonishing act already impacted the entire academy’s safety evaluation."
"Nonsense! My spinal discs are nearly protruding through my hip; where could I possibly go!" Taran El’s eyes widened in an instant, and had his spine allowed, he would have leapt up to bite him, "Do you think I enjoy running across rooftops of teaching buildings and bell towers?"
However, Ted Riel shook his head at his words: "... Experience tells that a herniated disc doesn’t completely stop your curiosity—if the target holds enough research value, you could climb out of that bed."
As he spoke, the Truth Confidant leisurely approached the scholar’s bedside and casually tapped on his book of Miracles—a small, illusory scalpel subsequently appeared in his hand.
Taran El instantly realized what his prior unease was about, and he scread, "What are you doing... I warn you, Ted... you can’t... TMD you can’t do this!"
Ted Riel paid no mind to the scholar’s protest, and he remotely pointed the scalpel towards Taran El, tapping the void three tis: "This will effectively restrain you in this bed—rest assured, I will cure you when I return."
"Ted you XX! The god of wisdom didn’t grant you the knowledge of disease and treatnt for you to do this! I... (Elf curse) (Light Breeze Harbor curse) (vulgarity too obscene to ntion)!!"
The room filled with the emotionally charged yet not so powerful yelling of the scholar, but the Truth Confidant had already turned and walked through a door that appeared out of thin air, leaving behind only the flustered apprentice Joshua, helplessly facing his teacher.
"... What are you staring at, hurry up and bring the hemorrhoid cream for your master!"
"Oh... Oh!"
...
The main part of the eting had ended—after exchanging enough intelligence and reaching a series of open "Cooperation Agreents," Duncan and several church leaders present announced the adjournnt.
However, unlike a normal "eting," there were no flashing caras, no horde of journalists recording this precious mont, nor any photos or footage to preserve any intelligence discussed during the eting—not even a page of agreent left on paper.
Because the issues discussed here were far too sensitive, any form of eting record might result in unforeseen "changes" soday in the future.
But all participants did not mind, for they believed that the witnessing of the four gods was enough.
The bishops left the venue first—Lucrecia’s servants led these guests to a temporarily arranged rest area on the deck, where tea and snacks had been prepared in advance, and in half an hour, there would also be a small barbecue gathering on the deck.
Many attendees still felt a sense of unreality, after all... enjoying a sumptuous dinner on the deck of the Holoss under the sea breeze—perhaps even the world’s most imaginative poets and playwrights would not dare to concoct this scene with a clear mind.
Others had different concerns—they were still worried about the "food safety" on board, although they had now accepted the fact that "Captain Duncan was humane and had established a cooperation with the church," they still felt that there might be sothing harmful to ordinary people’s physical and ntal health on the ship, especially at the so-called "barbecue gathering."
... Actually, their concerns were quite valid.
But it was useless.
Because it was not yet ti to return to the Pilgrimage Ark—the four Popes still stayed at the venue, the "closed-door eting" after the public eting was the truly important part.
"Now that only we remain," Duncan looked at the four sitting opposite him in the suddenly quiet and spacious hall, "we can discuss so matters not suitable to bring up publicly."
"Where would you like to start?" Helena said, "We will answer all your questions as best as we can."
"... It’s not really a question," Duncan thought for a mont and began at a moderate pace, "I just want to know, those actions of yours in the border seas... do you plan to keep them hidden from the City-States forever? I’m not referring to the search for the gods, but the search for new routes. If you indeed find new routes, how do you plan to persuade those City-States, which had no knowledge of these plans, to undergo such large-scale population migrations? And those other ambitious ’migration’ plans..."
He paused, his expression becoming serious, "To be honest, they sound very exciting, but once you think calmly, you can see that there are too many hasty decisions and presumptive elents, especially since you plan to accomplish these ’feats’ alone while keeping the whole world in the dark—what do you think the real success rate is?"
"... Keeping it a secret was a necessary action, there’s too much intelligence that cannot be made known to the public, and those ’secrets’ involving the border could easily lead to disasters if leaked to the ordinary City-States," Helena sighed, "Of course, your doubts are valid; there are indeed many hasty and presumptive elents in these plans, and no matter what, these large-scale operations cannot be kept secret forever... I can only say that we did not expect the situation to deteriorate so rapidly at the beginning."
"Our initial planning spanned several centuries," Frem next to her nodded, "If we had enough ti to buffer, we could have smoothly advanced these matters with the efforts of several generations, and we’d have more energy to discern and handle intelligence about the borders, safely conveying it to the various City-States. Now... we can only say ti is too tight."
"Ti... ti indeed is too tight," Duncan sighed lightly, knowing that Helena and Frem were stating the inevitable truth, so he didn’t linger on this topic. Instead, he turned to Fenna after a sigh, "Let’s talk about sothing else. Fenna, you have sothing you wanted to discuss with Lord Frem, right?"
Sitting across the table, the tall, grey-skinned Pope of the Fla Transmitter, Frem, seed slightly startled, then adjusted his posture as if realizing sothing, and looked earnestly at Fenna.
After a slight nod, Fenna stood up and walked toward the corner of the hall—monts later, she returned, carrying an unusually large object in front of everyone.
It was the "staff" left by Tarrikin.
"Be careful with the beams..." Duncan couldn’t help but caution on the side, "and the pillars..."
Fenna nodded, carefully not to damage anything in the hall with the staff, which resembled the trunk of a giant tree, then slowly placed it on the table in front of everyone.
"This is the ’Chronicle Pillar’."
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